Okay, so I swore I wouldn't do any searches for my book, but I did. However, I found an entry for TPOT on a board I'd never heard about before and I did not click on the link to read it!!! I consider that a major victory. Reading negative comments just drains me creatively and energetically, so resisting temptation was vital! I'm still excited that I did it!

In other news, I finished chapter 6 last night. I should have written a few more pages, but I didn't feel like starting 7. I'm still concerned that the ending isn't strong enough, but I still can't come up with any other way to get out of the chapter without adding another 10-15 pages to it. I'm already at 20 pages. After I flesh out the fight scene--which I'll probably save for the weekend--I should be around 22 pages. And where I ended 6 leaves me knowing how to start the next chapter. We'll see, though. I'm worried about this book having enough suspense and about Mika doing enough kick butt stuff. I know she will starting in a couple of chapters, but I don't know if that's soon enough.

Off to work. :-(

If you've ever watched the "Addam's Family," imagine that Lurch grumble. That's me this morning. I am so tired. And I can so not believe it's Monday again. Already. And I absolutely can't believe I have to go back to work. :-(

I got a lot done on chapter 6 yesterday. In fact, it's almost finished. I need to flesh out the fight scene, it's less than bare-boned. I need to shore up a weakness at the end of the bar scene--I think I figured out how to do that while I was tossing and turning last night. And I need to figure out how to end chapter 6 in a way that's suspenseful. No answers came for that, however. Considering the amount of sleep I've had, I doubt any answers will be forthcoming and I don't have a lot of time to waste thinking about this.

I can't remember ever struggling with a fight scene the way I've struggled with this one between Conor and a rogue vampire. I was still having trouble yesterday. I'd tried skipping ahead the day before and that didn't work. What I finally ended up doing was putting in some bare bones fight stuff, marking it with a note to flesh out some more later, and moving on. It started going better then, but I wasted hours and hours struggling to get less than a page! Anyway, this fight scene almost took me out of writing for the day, but I pressed on.

I finally did find an episode of "Angel" on television, but would you believe it was an episode that pretty much had zilch in the way of fighting? Don't let anyone tell you the universe doesn't have a sense of humor. Just when I needed to see Angel fight demons, I get the one episode that has next to nothing of that kind in it.

In other news, the contest cheaters did it again last night. I don't quite understand why someone who's entering the contest posts the answer to the question and lowers her own chances of winning, but that's exactly what some of these women are doing. My only guess on that is that they are so desperate to be loved, that they'll do anything for that tiny bit of thanks.

Just three more days till this contest ends and I can't wait! It's going to be books as prizes from now on. I've never had a reader cheat like this.

It's snowing, that means hell--AKA winter--has begun in Minnesota. I detest the stuff, abhor it. I don't think there's a word strong enough to describe how much I loathe snow. I don't much like the cold either, but I can tolerate that. I have zero tolerance for the white stuff. So for the next four months, I'll be muttering curses every time I look out the window. Damn, I need to move some place where snow is an odd occurrence.

To further brighten my day is the knowledge that I accomplished nothing yesterday on my writing. I need to write a fight scene between my half demon hero and a rogue vampire. You'd think as many times as I watched "Angel" that I'd be able to do this. You'd think as many times a week as they rerun "Angel," I could find a station playing an episode of that show. Nope. No luck at all. I tried to skip ahead, but that didn't really work either.

Project for today: Make up the ground I lost yesterday. Try to visualize and write a fight scene.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, the people who cheat to win contests are at it again. Last night, someone posted the answer to my new question and half a dozen others hurried up to use it. Good grief. My opinion of my fellow man is sinking by the moment. I never thought anyone would do something like this even once, let alone repeatedly. The people I know wouldn't even think of it. Maybe I should consider myself lucky that those who are around me in my day to day life are not the type who would cheat.

The part I find most interesting is these people don't seem to think that anyone will figure out what they're doing. Pulleeezzee! It is SO obvious. I had to go in and change the question again. Five more days till the contest ends; can they go that long without cheating? After my experience with this group so far, I'm betting the answer is no.

No day after Thanksgiving shopping for me. Thank God! I don't do crowds real well, but I've been collecting Daytons Santa Bear since 1985 and I have the full collection. (Daytons is now Marshall Fields, but it will ALWAYS be Daytons. :-) But this year I mail ordered them and already received Santa and Mrs. Bear. They're dressed to go skiing. The outfits change every year so the bears are always doing something different.

I think you have to be from Minnesota to understand Santa Bear fever. Every year, I get up way early on the day after Thanksgiving and line up at the entrance to Daytons so that I can hurry across the store with hundreds of other people as soon as the doors open to buy two stuffed bears. Then we wait in line forever to ring out. By the time I head for the exit with my bears, the line is wound through the store. They actually put up those ropes to keep the line orderly because there are SO many people.

My bear collection has gotten pretty overwhelming, and I would have given this up years ago, but I was one of the lucky few people who managed to get the first bear. In 1985, Daytons was not expecting the demand and didn't have nearly enough bears. Well, since I have one of the coveted, hard to find, early bears, how can I stop now?

Something tells me this may be connected to my obsessive/compulsive nature. ;-)

So how the hell would a demon and vampire fight each other?

I've been trying to think about this for a couple of days because I knew this scene was coming, but I haven't found any answers. Maybe I should have ordered the Angel DVD collections. He was a vampire fighting demons and at least it would give me something to go on. :-) From what I remember of the show it was pretty typical fight sequences. Maybe that's the way to go.

I'm almost through 5 pages today, not fast enough, but I started with another scene. I'm not sure it works or serves any real purpose, but then I always need a day or two of distance before I know how my work has turned out.

On the plus side, Mika finally revealed one of her powers. She can levitate! Hurrah!

It's Thanksgiving day in America and pretty much everyone will be celebrating. I plan to take a short break to join my parents for dinner, but otherwise I'll be spending the day writing. I have a four day weekend and I'll be spending each of those days writing, writing, writing.

I had to revise my contest question again yesterday. Sigh. The contest runs 6 more days, let's hope I can get through them without someone cheating again. I'm getting so tired of having to come up with new questions. This will be my last contest for a while--at least until the new book is done. I don't have time for this. I still can't quite comprehend why adults feel the need to cheat. Good grief, it's not like I'm a multi-national conglomerate giving away an expensive prize. I'm an author with two books out.

I read through chapter 5 again, polished up that final scene. It needed a bit of work. Then I called it done. Today I'll get to work on Chapter 6. I have a gazillion questions I need answered, but I can't wait. Not on this short of a deadline. I figure I'm going to be doing some massive revisions before I turn this book in so I need to be as ahead as I can manage so that I have as much time as possible.

I'm still drinking coffee, so if anything I wrote seems convoluted, chalk it up to just waking up.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

I did an interview today with a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times. How cool is that? I've got about half a gazillion relatives in Chicago, so one of them will be asked to buy a newspaper for me the day the article appears. I don't know when, but I sure as heck will be putting a link on my website when it appears!

Also spent the day writing a 2 page synopsis for my editor so he can address continuity issues my book is causing with the three books that follow. Which, of course, means I did no other writing. I no longer have a cushion on my deadline unless I really pick it up a few notches over Thanksgiving.

I saw a PDF file of my Booklist review and there is a star next to my name! Since Amazon didn't mention it was a starred review, I didn't think it was, but the PDF of the actual hardcopy page clearly shows one of those little babies. Hurrah! Um, to be honest, I'm not quite sure what the significance is of the starred review, but everyone is all excited when they get one, so I figure it's a really good thing. :-) I should ask my librarian friend about this.

My last piece of excitement, the headache is finally gone. My neck is still stiff, but I can think again. Double Hurrah! Of course, after 4 days over the Thanksgiving holiday on the laptop writing my Crimson City story, I'll probably have it back again. :-(

I think I'm mentioned before how every book presents its own challenges. Mika and Conor seem prepared to offer more than the usual amount.

The big one right now is their powers. I know a couple of Conor's because of things that have already happened in the story, but that's it. Mika hasn't shown me anything that is individual to her. And I don't know the kind of powers Conor regularly uses when he's doing his vampire/werewolf bounty hunting thing. You'd think they'd cooperate with me, wouldn't you? After all, once I'm done torturing them, they'll get to live happily ever after. :-)

Now I'm only one day ahead of schedule and I still have the headache I picked up on Saturday, although it's not as bad. I'm hoping it's gone when I wake up tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Oh! If you have any serious ideas for powers my two half demon and half human characters could have, please feel free to add comments to this post with your suggestions. I stress serious, okay?

Well, so much for my Sunday plans. I spent so much time on the computer Saturday, that I'd ended up with one of those awful headaches. You know the ones, where your eyes feel like scratchy tennis balls and your whole head just hurts really badly? That's nothing new. I get headaches often, even this kind because I do spend a lot of time on the laptop. But normally, I go to bed, wake up the next morning, and they're gone.

Not this time.

Despite taking several doses of Advil, this headache never left. I managed to eke out a couple of pages, but I didn't finish chapter 5 like I wanted, let alone start chapter 6. Bummer.

On the plus side, the headache is gone now. Well, more or less. I still have the lingering remnants, including really sore/tight muscles in my neck and shoulders. Ugh! And of course, today is a work day, so I can reacquire my headache for NWA instead of on my own stuff.

I need to answer a few email before I take off for work. Couldn't think straight enough to answer them yesterday.

I have to admit I'm completely shocked that anyone has visited my blog more than once. My life is so totally boring that I kind of figured I was talking to myself or a stray visitor that wandered through, yawned and left. Much to my surprise, I found out yesterday that this isn't necessarily the case. Did I mention I was shocked???

I basically work, write and sleep. If I could give up the day job, I'm sure I could find some more interesting activities to add to my list, but unfortunately, there's no end in sight. I vaguely remember when I used to have other interests outside of writing and actually had time to pursue them. But that was back in the 1990's since I started writing Ravyn's Flight in 2000. Some day, I may even get to read more than an occasional book again.

Yesterday was a good writing day. I didn't get quite as much accomplished as I'd hoped (only 7 or 8 pages), but the scene I finished had a really tough segment in it, so I'm still satisfied with my progress.

I had Conor and Mika talking about what had happened to his mother. It's a sensitive issue, so I had to really walk a line there. And Conor doesn't talk much, so I had to have what he did say be enough for Mika to figure things out, but not enough to go out of his character. Then there was how careful I had to be not to paint his father in too bad a light, but to remain sympathetic to his mother. (And after how his mother treated Conor, that wasn't necessarily easy).

Today, after I catch up on some email, I'll read through what I wrote yesterday, make sure it's okay, and then try to power write today. I should definitely finish chapter 5 today, then I need to start 6. I just need a nice little hook to scoot out of 5 with. Hopefully, something will come to me. I still have a headache from all the hours spent on the computer yesterday.

One last post and then I'm getting to work. Really. Honestly. For positive!

The Power of Two received a fantastic review from Booklist! That's an American Library Association publication. Since they can pick and choose who they review, just appearing in there is a huge deal. The review is up on TPOT's Amazon.com page. Just click on the title of this post to go there and read it.

Right now, my big problem is coming up with powers for my demons, especially Mika and Conor. I need powers that are going to work really well in battle sequences because those are coming at some point. I also need Mika and Conor to have complimentary powers, so that when they work together, it increases their strengths.

The book I've been using as primary research on demons hasn't been a help on this score and my online searches have proved irritating. Either I get way too many unrelated results or I get a bunch of sites selling some Buffy the Vampire Slayer Role Playing Game.

Usually, I just ask my characters. Ryne, the heroine from my paranormal that's making the rounds, was more than happy to fill me in on her people. The problem is that demons have an instinctual aversion to discussing their talents and both Mika and Conor are very close-mouthed. Despite this reluctance to share anything, I do know two of Conor's abilities and I know what all demons can do in general. But Mika won't talk at all and she hasn't done anything that involve her specific powers.

So I'm totally at a loss and I'm fast approaching a point where I HAVE to know. I write by the seat of my pants and every chapter builds on the one in front of it. Which is also why I need these continuity issues with the other books resolved VERY soon. I'm almost 100 pages into the story, about a quarter of the way, and I'm afraid if I don't have some answers quickly, I'll be doing some massive revising and I don't have time for this.

Goals for the day: Stay OFF the internet. Write at least through page 100 and finish chapter 5 if possible.

I'm up a little early this morning. My goal is to have about half an hour to write before I have to leave for work. Yesterday was such a wasted day. Between computer problems and all the emotional downs and ups, I just got nothing done. I'm going to be so busy this weekend trying to catch up. :-(

Still no word on continuity issues. Guess I'll be doing some revising later. I'd really like to get this taken care of so I can get on with the story without having to worry about it.

My 2005 engagement calendar arrived yesterday. That's a good thing. I hate paying full price for calendars and usually wait until they're half price, but I just have too much stuff I need to write down for the first three months or so of next year to wait that long. I will buy the rest of my calendars when they're half off though. :-)

Nope, didn't get much done before work at all this morning. But then I only ended up with about ten minutes. :-( I'm really going to need to work my butt off this weekend. I like having a cushion on the page count!

I finally finished the scene with my demons. Mika backed off nicely and left Conor with a zinger. I'll have to see how it works when I send it out to my friends to read. I'm still not sure if the scene is hot or stupid beyond belief, so I'll leave that up to them to tell me. Anyway, I'm still totally blank on how I thought I'd tie this scene into the plot. :-( Next time, I swear, I'm leaping out of bed and writing this stuff down! I can't believe it didn't come back to me!

I didn't get much writing done yesterday. Lunch, which is usually a good time to produce pages, ended up being used up (or most of it anyway) with the laptop. One of the guys at work is pretty good with computers, so he took a look at my laptop with the keyboard issues. He discovered that it wasn't the keyboard, but the play in the case that was causing the problem. So next to no writing on lunch and probably none today since he's going to try to fix that movement in the laptop housing.

Yesterday afternoon when I got home from work ended up being a PITA. First, I had to update my website contest and change the question. Again. Believe it or not, there are people cheating to get this prize. (Title is linked to contest page on my website.) I mean, come on! Adults cheating and for what? It's one of the sweepstakes sites. I've had to change the question once before because of the cheating and I'll keep changing it until either the contest ends or these cheaters knock it off. I don't know whether to be pissed off or feel pity for these people. Their lives have to be pretty sad if they're cheating to win a Miss Army Kit.

The second thing I had to do was email a correction to Barnes & Noble.com. They have The Power of Two listed on it's own and all the other 2176 books together. That hasn't been fixed yet, but I'm hopeful they put TPOT in with the rest of the series today.

Then there was the computer thing. I swore I wouldn't mess around with the laptop yesterday, but I did. So I decided to get up early this morning and write before work. I got a lot done yesterday by doing that. Only wouldn't you know it? I couldn't fall asleep last night. :-( I did get up early, though. And the Windows ME laptop decided to act up. Lost time on that.

Anyway, I'm off to sneak in a few pages before work. Wish me luck. I'm eating up my cushion at an alarming rate. I really am going to have to kick ass this weekend to get my pad back up on this book. Of course, it would be nice if I knew what kind of stuff I was going to need to change for the continuity of the series. Still no conference call or email about this. And so it goes.

Mika and Conor have decided to make me insane.

Okay, so anyone who knows me realizes my characters do this to me in every book. It's why my motto is; Torture the characters before they torture me. But these two have put me in my own very special kind of hell.

I hate writing sex scenes. It's such a damn juggling act. Not only do I have to get the emotional reactions in there, I also have to deal with the physical stuff and I have to watch the language. Those stupid euphemisms make it so hard! I don't like to use them, and I can't use the harder words either. So I write and rewrite and rewrite some more.

So what have these characters done? Well, they're so sexually fixated on each other that I'm doing more scenes than I've ever written in one book that revolve around this attraction. No, they haven't done it yet and won't do it for a few more chapters, but they're getting closer. Conor is still resisting, bless his heart, but Mika is, well, Trouble! She is brazen and I think some readers are going to have trouble with how shameless she is. She has no hangups about her body or about having sex with Conor. And she has no qualms about touching herself to tease him or about making references to bringing herself off in the shower. (I haven't actually written this part yet, but I think it's how the scene closes. She says it to Conor to drive him insane.)

Is this what I signed up for when I decided to write?

The thing is, I'm never sure if I write hot sex scenes or not and I need this book to be hot since that's the mood of the characters. But if I'm shooting for erotic and hitting stupid instead, that's not a good thing.

I didn't make my page count again yesterday. I went to bed. Not early enough, but earlier than I have been making it. I feel better today and hope that means I can get a lot of writing done. I may have to sacrifice Thesaurus.com and write without logging on. I seem to be having trouble with the screwing around online thing. :-(

I also need to come up with some powers for my hero and heroine. I know two of Conor's powers and I know general demon stuff like unnatural speed, hearing, shapeshifting and illusion, but Mika is mum. Of course, demons don't talk about their powers which is probably why she isn't telling me, but I really, really, really need to know everything they both can do soon.

I should be writing, but I was thinking about the note on the message board that discussed some of the points about The Power of Two and wanted to share some thoughts of my own.

The woman who posted understood both my characters really well. She said if it wasn't for the neural implants connecting Jake and Cai that she didn't think either one of them would have been able to reach out to each other or anyone else.

She's right.

I'll take it one step further. If Jake had known from the start that Cai was human, he would have held her at a distance, the way he keeps everyone else apart from him. He's buddies with his men, but he definitely allows them to only know so much of him. Only the fact that he thought Cai was inanimate and "safe" allowed him to share his deepest thoughts with her.

Jake and Cai are soul mates, so I wonder what they would have done when they'd met if the implants weren't inserted. (I believe soul mates find each other, but have the choice whether or not to form a relationship in this life.)

My thoughts about this is that Cai would have been totally intimidated by Jake's looks and not been comfortable around him. I think Jake would have been attracted and would have hit on her, but Cai would have missed it. :-) If he persisted, and he might not have if they weren't around each other a lot, he would have run scared when it started to get too deep for him. And that would have been that. Cai's confidence would have been undermined--if she ever trusted his interest in her to begin with.

I wonder if Cai, as she became older, would have managed to acquire enough confidence in herself to reach out to others. Maybe. She did realize in chapter 3 of TPOT that she needed to make an effort to form real friendships. But maybe that realization came because of her connection to Jake. If she didn't have the connection, I don't know if it would have occurred to her to reach out beyond the interweb. I honestly don't have the answers to this because Cai and Jake DO have the implants.

In any case, I found this interesting to think about and very much enjoyed the chance to look at it from a different slant than I had before.

Monday was definitely a great day! I received a fab email on The Power of Two which perked me up despite the lack of sleep I was running on. This was the third or fourth person who's commented on how TPOT is more Science Fiction than the other books in the series and that puzzles me.

Don't get me wrong, I take it as a compliment, but the reason it leaves me scratching my head is that I rarely read SF. If I delve into that genre, it tends to be Fantasy. (And who has time to read any more? I work full time, write pretty much every moment I'm not at work, and still have to take care of my website and do daily life things.) As for TPOT itself, I only did as much research as I needed to BS my way through the book. I was on a TIGHT deadline and didn't have time to do much exploring of any of the topics I raised.

Anyway, the first time I heard this about SF, I was like, "Huh?" Even the second time, but now, after hearing it so many times, I have to assume that by some fluke of nature, I managed to write something that fits that genre. How about that? :-)

I also found out that TPOT got a mention on the website for a Lubbock, TX TV station, along with books by some heavy hitters. Maybe most writers would yawn over that, but I'm still new enough that things like this excite me.

And speaking of exciting, visited a message board I hadn't been too in a long time and found a reader who LOVED TPOT enough to not only go looking for Ravyn's Flight, but who also wants to read other futuristic romances because she thought TPOT was so good! So YEA! I turned a reader on to futuristic romance! We need all the readers we can get!!!

My last piece of fab news for Monday was that on the message board I was whining about last week, someone FINALLY spoke up in defense of TPOT! Hurrah! I make it a point never to interfere in reader conversations about my work. I think authors that do are being intrusive. If you're not known to be a regular on the board, or if you're not invited to participate, I think authors should butt out. But it was KILLING me not to defend my baby. Of course, defensive never looks pretty, so it's probably just as well I stay quiet. :-)

Writing update: I did not make my Monday page count. I wasn't even close. I did, however, rewrite the pages I had twice yesterday. Sex stuff is so hard for me to write. I think it comes out okay when I'm done with it, but getting to the done point requires a lot of rewriting. My Crimson City story is fast taking on elements of an erotic romance. Um, does anyone have some tips on writing one of those? I read the workshop on Emma Holly's website, but I think I need more help. Conor and Mika are all over each other.

Of course, Conor is still resisting and Mika is going to back off in this scene, putting Conor's needs ahead of her own. Nice character growth there. It also will help their relationship survive the fall out that's coming because Conor will remember she did this for him.

Remember in yesterday's blog, I mentioned I had a way to tie this scene into the plot? I still can't remember it! OY! I'm going to keep writing and hope that it comes back to me! Why do the best ideas always come when I can't or won't write them down? The shower, while I'm driving, or while I'm lying in bed trying to sleep. I wish now I'd gotten up and jotted down the gist of it on a piece of paper, but I was so tired and didn't want to get out of bed. Sigh. I'm paying for that now.

Last night, while I was trying to sleep (Sunday nights are always bad no matter how little sleep I've had the night before), I had a great idea of what to do in the first scene in Chapter 5. This would tie the scene into character growth, relationship growth between Mika and Conor, and also tie into plot.

There's just one small problem.

I can't remember what it was.

Oh, I can remember a few parts of it. Just not a few of the big parts. Especially, how it ties into the plot. I'm hopeful that as the coffee kicks in and I wake up some more, it comes back to me.

I also had some ideas for scene 2 in this chapter while I was tossing around. These were never as concrete as for the first scene, but I think I still recall what I was planning to do here. Might need some continuity things taken care of with the other books, though. =8-O

From the time I started writing The Power of Two, I knew I was going to take slams for Cai's issue. (My characters always have issues. :-) I'd even braced myself for the hit, but I still wasn't prepared when it finally came. At least not from this particular site.

Maybe I'd been lulled into a false sense of security since none of the other reviewers mentioned it. In fact, lots and lots of people seemed to really like this book. That's why, when I read the review today, it just stunned me. The reviewer didn't like that Cai had self-esteem issues because this was supposed to be a series about "girl power." Since when did kick-ass mean a woman had zero insecurities?

It's really interesting because this reviewer hasn't been particularly enamored with any book in the series, but she's always sure the next one is going to be better. Then the next one comes out and she finds fault after fault.

I shouldn't take it so personally. I knew there would be people who would think Cai not believing herself attractive was a problem. I wrote it anyway because this is who Cai is. To not write it in would be to betray her and I would never, ever betray my characters. And let's be honest, do any of us know even a single woman who is 100% happy with her appearance? I sure as hell don't, so why should there be heroines who are?

Anyway, this has sapped all the life out of me and I don't feel like writing any more of my demon children. After all, it'll just be picked apart, if not for Mika thinking herself weak because she's half human, then for the amount of time spent on the sexual attraction between Mika and Conor.

So what is the etiquette when two half demons are lying together talking? Or is there any?

I was worried that this chapter wouldn't have any suspense, and it doesn't if you're looking at outside stuff, but Mika and Conor are talking. Getting to know each other. As I read through the second scene in the chapter, I've decided it's definitely a necessity to move their personal relationship forward. I just hope that it's interesting.

Despite working all day yesterday, I only wrote about 7 pages, which wasn't good enough. I don't know why this chapter is moving so slowly. I did reach 80 pages this morning so was able to check that off on my schedule, but I still have about 4 more pages to go to finish chapter 4. I'd like to get a jump on 5 too since I'm eating up my cushion.

Somewhere in chapter 4, I lost control of Mika and Conor. Which of course, led to worrying and gnashing of teeth. Do they not understand we have a story to tell and they can not focus on each other to the exclusion of all else?

I feel better today, though. I talked to my friend about this and she reminded me that I like to fly into the mist and to just keep writing, let the characters lead, and see where I end up. That I can revise later if I need to. I can't believe I forgot all this.

Maybe it's this short deadline cluttering up my head. I just don't feel like I have time to go down any blind alleys and risk hitting a dead end. But that's what I'm going to do today, let Mika and Conor do what they want and see where I end up. Hopefully, I can trust them. But demons lie and both my hero and heroine are half demon. ;-)

Update on the "repaired" laptop: The keyboard issues continued to worsen until it's almost as bad as when I sent it in to be fixed. One of the guys at work offered a couple of suggestions that I'll have to find time to try. He also said if that didn't work, to bring it in and he'll take a look at it. I'm hoping I can fix it without having to mail it off to Illinois again!

This backup laptop sucks for a number of reasons, including Windows ME and all the crashing/freezing/error issues and the smaller keyboard which hurts my hands. Since I'm on a deadline and doing a lot of typing, I need a good computer. I'm eyeing that nice little Toshiba at Best Buy again. Sigh. But it seems so stupid to waste money on a new laptop when the issue on the laptop I like is just the keyboard. Anyway, send good vibes that I can fix the laptop myself or that the guy at work can fix it.

Now I need to go do something.

Well, the good news is my laptop is back. The bad news is that while the g and h keys are better, they're not fixed. This is despite a new keyboard. So the problem is something more. I'm back to where I was a couple of months ago; the keys work if I press really, really hard. Not good for writing. Wah!

To add to my joy, they wiped my hard drive. sigh. Oh, well. Laptop will be going back out again shortly.

Page count for the day due to laptop: 3/4 of one page.

I find it interesting sometimes how life balances things. Take this week for instance. Earlier I posted about the slams I was taking on a message board--it was a little more extensive than I mentioned here--but then came Wednesday.

I mentioned in my post yesterday evening that I'd found one good review online. Well, after I posted, I found another. In fact, from what I can figure out of their rating system, 4 roses is the second highest rating you can get and that's what they gave The Power of Two. That was pretty cool! And I really enjoyed that the reviewer mentioned what she liked about the book.

So this week I had two slams and two praises. Balance.

Report on my day: Wrote required number of pages. Did not get to bed early. sigh. Overslept again this morning and see that with the wind chill, it's 20 degrees outside.

Goal for the day: Write 4 more pages and maybe finish scene 1 in chapter 4. (Poor Conor. Mika caught him red-handed and she's about to start playing with him. Or at least I think she is. The line we ended with yesterday was a good one and definitely looks as if she plans to tease him.)

I went online today to check the status of my laptop and it's already on its way back to me! Hurrah! Scheduled delivery is listed as tomorrow! Oh, man, I can't wait to have my Windows XP laptop back in my hands. To be able to relegate this Windows ME computer back to backup status! I never expected the return to be so quick. I just hope everything is fixed.

More good news today. I received a GREAT review for The Power of Two! This reviewer really got what I was trying to say and it was fab to read! I already posted a quote up on my website. TPOT Review Click on the Reviews link on the left side of the page.

Now I just need to get going on my pages for the day. I owe a couple of emails and I'm itching to write those rather than my story. I have to work and save the notes for later.

I had a good writing day today. I think I solved my problem with the end of chapter 3 and it only added one page to my chapter. It also left me with a nice lead in for chapter 4, so I managed to meet my four page goal today. Hurrah!

Tired, though, and definitely ready for bed. I wanted to go to sleep an hour ago, but it took until now to get my scheduled pages finished. Almost had to go for the second, JUMBO, cup of coffee at work today, but managed to make it through the day without it.

Goal for tomorrow: Sit down and come up with some chapter goals for Four, so that I'm not floundering. (I do have an idea what I want to do since I didn't have enough room to squeeze this into chapter 3. I don't think I can drag it out till the end of chapter 4, though, simply because I need to get the story moving. I'm already at page 68 and I haven't written a prologue yet which could add another 10 pages to my total. All of which means I need to get Conor and Mika to spend more time together getting to know each other.)

Secondary goal: Stay away from message boards. (Um, no one noticed my fingers were crossed, did they?)

It felt like a really short night and I am tired this morning. Last night there was a Leisure/Love Spell chat at Writerspace and it was lots of fun! There were people there who loved my books and kept telling me that, so it helped on the message board stuff. Of course, that's part of the reason why I'm so tired. I didn't get offline until after 9:30.

On the plus side of the column, I did my four pages yesterday and I finished chapter 3. On the negative side, I'm not happy with how I ended the chapter and I can't move forward on chapter 4 until I fix it. I've had zero time to think about it since I had to get some blurbs ready for the chat, and when it was over, I pretty much headed right for bed. I need some kind of suspense hook here and what I have is character stuff. It's also way too close to how I ended the first scene in this chapter, but not nearly as clever. Definitely needs some work. But plotting/suspense things still don't come naturally to me. Wish I had time to print out the chapter and look at it on hard copy, but I don't.

Goals for the day: Fix the end of chapter 3. Write 4 pages in chapter 4. Somehow.

...So I can bang my head against it.

It was inevitable, I suppose. I took hits on Ravyn's Flight because it had too much romance and people complained about it being science fiction lite. (Which is what Futuristic romance is!) Now, I'm starting to take hits for The Power of Two not having enough romance. sigh.

I will allow that TPOT does have more plot in it that RF did, however, there is plenty of romance. It's just not a usual romance. In most romances, the hero and heroine get to see the outward display of who the other person is and gradually develop the emotional intimacy. Jake and Cai start out with the emotional intimacy being in place and they have to learn how to reconcile that with the outward face they both show the world. The whole book, every scene, is about Jake and Cai falling in love, learning about themselves and each other.

Anyway, I've got to stop reading message boards. It's rarely positive, since no one has yet to write the perfect book, and each reader has a different idea of what they like and dislike. With Ravyn's Flight, every single solitary thing I was criticized for, someone else praised. It's impossible to meet everyone's expectations. I just wish people loved Jake and Cai as much as I did. They're a very special couple.

I'm tired, but couldn't sleep any more, so I got up, made coffee and reread what I wrote yesterday. I had to do some fiddling with one paragraph, otherwise it read pretty well. Of course, the true test is if there's any suspense/tension there. Unfortunately, I'm completely unable to judge this since I never see this in my own writing.

Last night was another fun Barnes & Noble watch night for The Power of Two. It kept dropping every hour. I still want to drop below 100 in the rankings even if it's just for one hour so that I can print it out for my scrapbook. Small pleasures, I know, but what can I say?

Goal for the day: Finish chapter 3.

After days of spinning my wheels, I finished the first scene in chapter 3 today and I wrote nearly 8 pages! Poor Conor. Mika is giving him fits and he finally fled the room in full retreat! Hee hee. Apparently, changing POV was the answer because everything flowed once I did that. I just hope the writing flows tomorrow too and that I can finish chapter 3. I'm halfway there now.

In a side note, I really miss baseball. I like to write with a game on and the sound muted, but there won't be any more baseball for months and months. The shopping channel was just irritating today since they're pushing holiday gifts and most of them were uninteresting in the extreme. I think my cable company needs to get some winter baseball league coverage going here. I mean, come on ESPN is covering POKER games for heaven's sake! Surely, a little winter league baseball is more of a sport than some stupid card game.

I wrote 4 pages in chapter 3 yesterday (that's my goal while I'm on deadline, 4 pages a day, but more is better). And it looks as if this change in POV is going to work. The scene is more interesting in Conor's eyes and there are other things happening that go beyond the attraction between them. I just have to go back and layer them in because the plot stuff is not what poor Conor is focused on. :-) I wonder how long he can resist?

Now I need to get a few things done and start writing some more. Goal is to finish all of chapter 3 by tomorrow night. With a little luck, I'll start 4, but for sure 3 has to be done.

Talked to my friend last night about my demon children (aka Mika and Conor, the heroine and hero of my Crimson City story). She suggested changing the Point of View character from Mika to Conor. I think this is going to work, but we'll see. At least it opened up a bunch of possibilities that I didn't have before.

It's one of those duh moments. One of the first things a lot of writers do when they're having trouble with a scene is to change what characters' head they're in. I've done it before on other books, but it never occurred to me here. And I wasted FOUR days on this!

Off to work.

Mulling overnight did not present me with any answers to my Conor and Mika dilemma. I'm starting to feel that panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach. What if I can't write any more???

Okay, taking a deep breath here. These characters barged right in and I didn't have any problem writing the first two chapters. I just need to think some more. Maybe I don't know my characters well enough. Maybe if I fill out lengthy character sketches I'll be able to write chapter three.

But it's more the suspense part than the hero and heroine that is giving me problems. They're happy to play, they just don't want to get the story moving. I've had this happen before where the characters were too fascinated by each other and I ended up having to rewrite the entire proposal. I don't have time for that kind of revision here, not with a 4 1/2 month deadline.

Plan for the day. Fill in lengthy character sketches. Make notes on exciting things that could happen in this chapter that involve plot, not characters. Breath. Deeply. Often.

Mika and Conor are trying to drive me nuts, I know it. They're the hero and heroine in my latest book. The problem is that they're so caught up in playing with each other, I can't get the plot to move forward.

Right now, Mika is straddling Conor while he's sitting in a kitchen chair. All she has on are a pair of high-cut panties and a thin tank top. All he has on is jeans. Conor doesn't want to want her and he's resisting, so I'm not worried about them having sex this early. But unfortunately, they're both so fascinated with each other, they just want to keep playing. sigh. I need them to get to work.

I'm contemplating going to bed and letting them sit overnight, but that didn't work last night. Or the night before. I really need to get moving here!

Maybe it's because I attended the School of Journalism at the University of Minnesota, but I can get totally wrapped up in news coverage. Last night was one of those nights. I knew there wouldn't be any election results early and I knew I needed to write and get some sleep. Is that what I did? Heck, no! I stayed up and flipped from station to station. Sigh. Why do I do this to myself? I ended up oversleeping again and the news people look better than I feel right now and they've been up all night!

I did start chapter 3 yesterday, but I didn't get very far. And when I came home, I messed with the blog some more. I found instructions on how to personalize the template and wanted to make this more me. Of course, that took some time because I had to try out different colors. I'm curious if I can add my own header, but I didn't investigate that.

I received a couple of really nice emails yesterday, so I'm feeling a bit better now about The Power of Two. But also had a friend post on a board I'm on about how she's tired of neurotic writer blogs. Hmm. All writers are neurotic, but maybe I need to re-think my focus here. Maybe no one is interested in hearing about my insecurities when there are plenty of other insecure writers.

Also, I've been inundated with entries for my contest. They started arriving yesterday and still keep coming. I did a search, and sure enough, it's posted on a sweepstakes site. That's okay, I guess, since the answer to the contest question isn't there so they still have to read the excerpt. Maybe some of them will like my writing enough to give The Power of Two a try. And I get to add them all to my newsletter list since it says right on the contest page--you enter, you're subscribed.

I didn't get to bed quite as early as I'd hoped last night. sigh. This always happens, but I feel much better than I did yesterday which is a good thing.

Had a heck of a commute home from work yesterday afternoon. We were at a dead stop for miles, only moving forward in inches. Of course, I couldn't get any kind of traffic report on the radio. Why would they possibly need to monitor traffic before 3:30 in the afternoon??? Finally, I heard that there was an accident blocking the left lane. Which lane was I in? You guessed it. The left.

The accident couldn't have picked a worse place to happen because it's right where the freeway narrows down from 3 lanes to 2 so we always back up from there anyway. And keep in mind that I get off work at 2:30. Anyway, there was no possible way to move to the middle lane, but there were so many miles left till the accident site and we were moving soooo slowly, I figured there was a good chance the accident would clear before I reached that point. I was right. But it took me an hour to drive 20 miles home. sigh.

Now that I've bored everyone with a traffic report, I should move on to the weather, yes? ;-) It's raining. Which means morning commute will be a bear too. Minnesotans cannot drive in rain.

Plan for today: Vote on the way home from work. Start writing chapter 3 in my Crimson City story. Work on some chapter goals so I have a clue where I'm going next. Mail the laptop in to be fixed. (I still have to fill out the paperwork. I have all my files off and the computer's free space is wiped.)

Somehow I made it through the day and got things done! I don't know how I managed it, but I'm fading fast right now.

I made it through chapter 2 of my Crimson City story. I wasn't able to get everything in there that the editor wanted to see up front, but it wouldn't slide in naturally. I figure I'll get it into chapter 3. Some of it anyway. BTW, darn good thing he suggested playing up the sexual attraction/desire between the hero and heroine because they're off in that direction anyway. I haven't started chapter 3 yet, but from what I've seen.... I just hope I can keep them from talking too dirty with each other. Ah, well, a problem for tomorrow.

I overslept this morning. Really overslept. I hit the snooze and then didn't hear the alarm again for almost an hour. The last thing I should be doing is posting here; I don't have time. Is that stopping me? Of course not. It's that procrastination/morning dawdler thing.

Finished adding the stuff I wanted to add to the first chapter of my Crimson City story and I made it through the first scene in chapter 2 as well. Today the plan is to do the second scene in that chapter, and hopefully, still have time to start writing a new chapter/scene. I don't have a really concrete idea of what I want to do in chapter 3, so I'll have to do chapter goals today. What do I need/want to accomplish in this chapter?

I do have a scene between my h/h in my head. Um, I think I might be pushing the envelope again. I wonder how much leeway I'll get on sex talk? They aren't actually going to do the wild thing yet, they're still dancing around each other and will be for a while, but both of them are so blunt. Kind of. It's hard to describe especially at this time of the morning with the amount of sleep I had and the rush I'm in. I'm thinking I'll write it the way I see/hear it and I can always tinker later. One good thing; this time around I'm not feeling uncomfortable (so far) about writing about sex or the h/h wanting it, knowing that my editor is a man and going to read it! With TPOT, I was stuck for two days because all I could think of was him reading. :-)

Okay, now I seriously have to logoff and I didn't even get to moan about reading the second half of TPOT and getting just as irate as I was on Saturday. I guess I'll save that for later. I'm sure y'all are waiting with bated breath!